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PETER HITCHENS: Don't muzzle our 'cruel' lawyers - I'll need one to keep me out of jail

/li> 0 shares I grieve the death of Frances Andrade, who killed herself after being vigorously cross-examined, but strongly object to people using the event to argue for limits on the freedom to cross-examine

I genuinely fear that I will go to prison before I die, for writing or saying something that is no longer allowed. I have met quite a lot of people who hate me and my views so much that they would very much like this to happen.

Our society is already a hundred times more intolerant than it was when I was born. In recent years, police officers have actually questioned prominent people because of opinions they have expressed, a thing unthinkable even 30 years ago.

Of course the main threat to free speech is not prison but the loss of your job, as anyone in the public sector knows very well.

But the limits on what can be said shrink all the time, and the powers of the police and prosecutors grow.

At some point these two curves may meet, and I may find myself on the receiving end of one of those nasty, well-publicised dawn raids that the police like so much.

My only hope, if this happens, will be in the courtroom. That is one reason why I urge you not be seduced by calls to limit the freedom of defence lawyers.

Witnesses do lie and make things up. Juries are often pretty feeble and too easily led. Since they abolished the property qualification and brought the age limit down to 18 (it may soon be 16), the chances of having your case heard by educated or experienced people have shrivelled.

And since the disgraceful introduction of majority verdicts, one or two wise jurors cannot hold out for long against a lazy, bored majority who think there’s no smoke without fire, and want to go home.

    More from Peter Hitchens...   PETER HITCHENS: We set Syria ablaze... Now we're hurling in explosives 01/06/13   The horrific killing of a soldier in London does not deserve the attention it is still getting 25/05/13   The Great Innocence Robbery: The awful abuse of girls in Oxford is just the latest consequence 19/05/13   Wondering how they ignored a kidnapper in Ohio? Well we're ignoring something MUCH bigger 11/05/13   PETER HITCHENS: Fruitcakes and closet racists? Cameron's talking about YOU! 04/05/13   PETER HITCHENS: Fanatical fools trying to blow us all up? They're the least of our problems... 27/04/13   PETER HITCHENS: What 'decriminalise' really means is: we're giving junkies a drug den next door to you 21/04/13   PETER HITCHENS: Let's remember Maggie for what she really was... a tragic failure 14/04/13   PETER HITCHENS: Miliband shoots at a footballing fascist - and scores an own goal 06/04/13   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

So unless defence lawyers have full freedom to question prosecution witnesses, the defendant in a modern British trial might as well go straight to jail and get on with his sentence.

Like any civilised person, I grieve at the death of Frances Andrade, who killed herself after giving evidence against Michael Brewer, during which she was vigorously cross-examined.

May she rest in peace. But I object strongly to the way in which many people have used this event to argue for limits on the freedom to cross-examine.

We do not really know why she took her life, though I would point out that, like a frightening number of suicides, she was taking so-called ‘antidepressant’ drugs, which are known in some cases to promote suicidal feelings in those who take them. 

Think of this another way. A trial is not just an argument after which everyone goes home. If the accused is found guilty, he goes to prison and – if he has until then been a respectable person, who will suffer greatly in jail – his life is more or less at an end. Some people deserve this. But their guilt must be proved first. If trials become mere formalities, in which we go through the motions of justice while forgetting its principles, we will be a tyranny.

Your starter for ten... how many questions would Paxo get right?

Jeremy Paxman was exceptionally rude to University Challenge contestant Tom Tyszczuk Smith when he got an answer badly wrong.

And he knew it, which was why, when the student soon afterwards got a difficult answer right, Mr Paxman beamed a 2,000-watt ingratiating simper at him. Mr Paxman does have a more conciliatory side, as he revealed when he once hand-delivered a letter of apology to Peter Mandelson.

The thing is, Mr Paxman already knew that Tom T-S was an unusually gentle, diffident and polite young man. They’d met before – last October, in a previous heat.

Near the start of that programme, Tom T-S pressed his buzzer and then realised (I’ve done the same thing) that he had completely forgotten what he meant to say. After a ghastly silence, he whispered, very touchingly: ‘I’m terribly sorry, it’s gone.’ Even my stony heart went out to him. For some time afterwards, the poor youth hung his head in what appeared to be hopeless embarrassment.

Rude: Jeremy Paxman (right) was exceptionally rude to University Challenge contestant Tom Tyszczuk Smith (left) when he got an answer badly wrong

He obviously knows a lot, and has the courage to risk mockery and scorn by going on the programme, but he is not confident. So it seems odd that his particular stumble should attract such scorn.

Mr Paxman really should not act so superior. I suspect his historical knowledge is quite patchy. I’m sure he’s as baffled by the science questions he asks as almost everyone else is, even though he maintains  a stern demeanour.

His pronunciation of German words is comically bad. Despite this, he always refers to the Chinese author Jung Chang as if she were German, wrongly calling her ‘Yoong Chang’. And the other day he mixed up the 21st and the 121st Psalms, which a Cambridge English graduate shouldn’t do.

Corruption wasn't policewoman April Casburn's real crime Feeblest grounds: Policewoman April Casburn is in prison for supposed corruption, but the only evidence against her was from a reporter

There really ought to be a huge fuss about the conviction, on the feeblest grounds, of policewoman April Casburn.

She is in prison for supposed corruption, but the only evidence against her was from a newspaper reporter who said ‘she must have asked for money’, because that was what he put in an email to colleagues after talking to her. ‘Must have’. Hardly a ringing declaration, is it?

Against her repeated denials and years of good character (she didn’t need money and was an experienced and well-regarded officer of some distinction) this does not seem to me to be beyond reasonable doubt.

I suspect her offence was that she talked to a newspaper.

Well, if that’s so, should this conviction and sentence be allowed to stand?

Now consider this. A youth, now 17, admits that he struck Anthony Owen, 68, in the face. Dr Owen, a distinguished cancer specialist, is thought to have then fallen and hit his head on the ground. He died. The youth, who was with friends at the time of the incident, cannot be named for legal reasons.

He says he acted in self-defence, and was scared of the 68-year-old doctor. The Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to charge him.

Do you want to live in a country where these sorts of things can happen?

  Now we see clearly that the promise of the NHS, of treatment ‘free at the point of use’, is a sham. In return for great piles of taxes, they’ll hand out pills and bandages when you’re still reasonably young and fit. But as soon as you really need to be looked after, they starve you to death, or turf you out and make you sell your house to pay for ‘care’. Just like the insurance companies, they slip away when the going gets tough.

 

I find myself rather admiring the spirit of Cait Reilly, the young woman who objected to being ordered to work unpaid at Poundland. She acted as a free British person ought to act. I didn’t join in the jeers against her when her action first came to light, and I’m very glad.

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